Pan's Shadow
by Josephine Sawyer
Summary: She would sit in the window for hours - waiting for something. What it was, she wouldn't tell. Maybe she didn't even know herself.


Author's Note: A weird, dark imagining that's been floating in my head for a long time, albeit not in this form. I'm open for constructive criticism, with one condition: I will not change the ending. This probably isn't for kids under 13, and maybe not even unless they're in their late teens, not for violence or innuendo or anything other than the fact that it's dark. Everyone who has read it – including several adults – has been shocked by it. If you think you have good, strong reasoning for why this is a horrible contortion for the sparkling, magical children's story of Peter Pan, please e-mail me about it and I will send you my reasoning. Don't put it in a review where I can't contact you back easily.  That said – read on.

Pan's Shadow 

She would sit on her windowsill for hours. Her parents hated it – the ledge was thin and high above the snow-covered street below. A fall from the window would be fifty feet down onto Pratt Street, but the wind called out to her and so she pushed open the window – she had to stand on tiptoe to do so – and sat on the ledge. Her parents couldn't do anything, she would sit there for hours, her balance unwavering as she sat.

There was some worry – most eleven-year-old girls are more active, less prone to sitting still for hours, but after much discussion it was decided that there was really no problem: she was easier to take care of like this anyway, and nothing anyone did would stop her. 

It was December 20; a deep frost had descended, as it had every year, and her parents wondered how she could withstand the biting cold wind that blew past the window. They turned up the heat to make up for the draft. And she sat, motionless, on the windowsill.

Finally, it became too much to bear. Her father pulled her out of the window and slammed it closed. "Wendy!" he shouted, "Why do you do that? It isn't healthy – it's not normal. It's dangerous – you could fall down, five stories."

She just stared up at him, without expression. "I'm waiting," she said. 

"For what?"

She shrugged. "Dunno."

Her father shook his head. "Wait in the warmth of the room, where you won't fall. I just don't want you to get hurt, Wendy."

She nodded. "Alright. I won't get hurt," she said. "I promise, I won't get hurt."

That was the end of that. For several weeks, she would sit on the navy blue chair in her warm, bright room, staring out the window, just as silent and motionless as before. 

Then, one night, she pulled open the window.

And soon she was sitting back on the windowsill, impervious to January's cold bite. 

Seeing his daughter again sitting in the windowsill, her father suggested barring the window, affixing it shut, or at least installing a child safety lock, but her mother objected – barring the window was too ugly, affixing it shut too permanent, and no child safety lock would stop their adolescent daughter. 

They considered a psychiatrist, but decided it would be useless. So it all came to nothing.

It was late one February night that it happened. She was sitting on the windowsill as usual, looking out upon the snow-covered rooftops nearby. The street was empty save the occasional car passing by. And then her attention shifted – onto something floating in the air, something only she could see. A will-o-the-wisp. 

She started mumbling. "But I can't fly," she said. "It's cold… What about my parents?…"

There was a pause, and then, not taking her eyes from the space ahead of her in the air, she nodded, and threw herself out of the open window. 

She was flying, floating on air. "You were right, Peter," she called, smiling at the young boy – just her size – "It's not so cold after all." She looked back to her window. "But I think I'll be going back. My parents will be so worried if they can't find me."

He grabbed her hand before she touched the windowsill. "Oh no, Wendy, you can't go back there. Come along with me, second star to the right – we'll have such fun…"

She tried to fly back to her window, but his grip was tight. Slowly, painfully, she turned away. "Alright, I guess."

And then she was gone.

It took three hours for someone to stumble on the broken little body in the crimson snow, and only ten more minutes for her parents to identify it for the police.


End file.
